North American social network penetration is almost evenly spread across the continent, according to eMarketer‘s latest estimates of media usage in the US and Canada.

This year in Canada, 68% of internet users will visit social networking sites at least monthly, neck and neck with 68.6% in the US. These penetration rates will continue to vary by less than one percentage point throughout the rest of eMarketer’s forecast period.

The slightly lower rate of internet penetration in Canada means slightly fewer consumers in Canada overall will use social networks – at 53% of the population this year versus 54.1% of the US population. But these figures will similarly remain in a tight range through 2018.

Across the region, 88.4% of social network users will visit Facebook monthly this year. Penetration is nearly 5 points higher among social networks in Canada – a small but persistent difference in Facebook’s popularity across the border throughout eMarketer’s forecast period.